How should I move windows boot manager from HDD to SSD?

GajalShankar
GajalShankar Member Posts: 109 Fixer WiFi Icon
edited November 2023 in 2019 Archives
In my travelmate, previously(before adding HDD) I was using kali and windows 10 dual booted I was using grub2 for booting then after installing NVme SSD (formatted previous windows partition on HDD) installed my windows 10 in SSD, keeping kali remains in HDD but Today I have seen my windows boot manager is on HDD partition(/dev/sda2) it should be (/dev/nvmep0)
Or will it be enough I reinstall grub in SSD so will it move windows boot manager also to SSD?
Please help

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  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Windows boot manager is on the 100MB UEFI partition. Unless you cloned the HDD to the SSD when installing the latter that partition remained where it was before.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • GajalShankar
    GajalShankar Member Posts: 109 Fixer WiFi Icon
    When I bought kingston Nvme SSD along with that I got Acronis True Image but I didn't use due to limitation of not clong particular partition(only full HDD to SSD leaving the empty space aside).Since I dual booted kali linux previously.I don't want to it to fill up my SSD also I don't want to partition my SSD. 

    Firstly How windows boot manger will affects the performance during boot if it is in HDD but installed OS is in SSD?I don't find much difference please explain
    Secondly,Can't I reinstall windows boot manager to SSD?


  • GajalShankar
    GajalShankar Member Posts: 109 Fixer WiFi Icon
    Let me change the question how to move EFI partition from HDD to SSD.Since my windows bootmanager and grub2(entires of ubuntu) both resides in EFI partition As shown in the image /dev/sda1.Please help



  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    I am surprised that it is showing more than the 100MB usually used for an UEFI partition. Perhaps gparted is displaying them somewhat differently than in Windows Disk Manager or it has somehow been expanded by grub. Usually when it's not 100MB the boot fails due to mismatches in the signing. I expect that having the UEFI partition on a HDD instead of SSD will give minimal performance impact, after all that data is really only used during the very initial portion of the boot process. By the time the OS starts to load it's no longer needed.
    You should be able to duplicate the /dev/sda1 UEFI partition on /dev/nvme as the first partition on the disk and boot the UEFI/Grub stuff from it. If you are going to continue to run Windows/Linux as a dual boot you'll have to decide where each will reside. I'm guessing if you run Linux primarily you'll want to configure the ext4 partitions on the SSD and leave the Windows partitions on the HDD. If you are primarily running Windows you'll reverse that. I'm not sure, but there might be longevity issues using the SSD for swap space, but there are likely the same issues in Windows with the swap file.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • GajalShankar
    GajalShankar Member Posts: 109 Fixer WiFi Icon
    Earlier somehow 500MB Unallocated space left At the beginning of /dev/sda1  so I created temporary partition & merged(resized) it with EFI partition that's why the size is somewhat larger. My windows C drive is in SSD and Linux root home and swap in HDD.So As per your answer, it won't affect performance that much. So I decided not to move.  But  I'm curious to know whether there is a possible way to move the EFI partition or simply windows boot manager residing inside can be relocated to some other drive?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Yes, it's done really often when updating from a HDD to a SSD. You just clone the partition and maybe have to tell your BIOS to use the new drive. Most of the time you just have to boot with the old drive removed or delete the UEFI partition from the old drive.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • GajalShankar
    GajalShankar Member Posts: 109 Fixer WiFi Icon
    Btw what tools are available for cloning the specific partition. Acronis True Image doesn't do that I already described in comment no. three of this thread
  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,155 Trailblazer
    edited December 2019 Answer ✓
    GajalShankar said:
    Btw what tools are available for cloning the specific partition. Acronis True Image doesn't do that I already described in comment no. three of this thread
    Use Macrium Reflect 7 free version and follow this guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clone-your-pcs-hard-drive-macrium-reflect if you would have bought a Samsung ssd then it would have been much easier as Samsung have their own 'Data Migration that makes it so easy and hassel free.

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